


burnin' rubber

by markleeprint



Category: EXO (Band), NCT (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Blood, Crime Scene Investigators, Crimes & Criminals, Death, Detectives, Enemies to Lovers, Fighting, Forensic Scientists, Forensics, Gore, Homicide, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Some Humor, Swearing, Violence, by 10 years, not for faint hearts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:06:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25245853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markleeprint/pseuds/markleeprint
Summary: Not everybody gets a voice, especially the dead who's lives been stripped away from them. It's up to Seoul's most expertise team of forensic scientists, detectives, and crime scene investigators to help deliver justice to those who can't have a voice.Or alternatively, sometimes they all can't get along and Renjun just happens to hate Donghyuck's guts. With all his willpower he can't make things too personal for fear that the integrity of a future assignment might be compromised.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Oil and water

**Author's Note:**

> -> !!! TW// murder, dead bodies, blood, violence, mention of necrophilia !!! <-
> 
> i wouldn't suggest reading this if you're light-hearted or generally don't like this kind of stuff. i don't describe the gore in too much detail though i'd still advise you to click off in case any of the warnings trigger you. 
> 
> comments are appreciated!

* * *

3:03 in the morning, a very unfortunate man by the name of Huang Renjun was called down to a casino to a double homicide. Due to the seemingly urgency of the case, he rushed on over but was careful of any awaiting speed tickets that might just vacuum up his very limited funds and time. The poor guy didn’t even get a cup of coffee from the break room or a wink of sleep, partially caused by one of his coworker’s nonstop babbling.

Renjun was about to pull out his field kit and his camera and slam shut the trunk before a tap on the shoulder spooked him, raising his hand which formed a fist. “Woah! Can you try not to attempt and like, physically, hurt me for one second?” A very condescending voice well at least to him piped up which God he wanted to actually punch so badly. 

“You again? You’re the last person I want to see when we have a double homicide at fucking 3am in the morning,” he rolled his eyes, his back turned facing the other man while he reached for his equipment all while muttering things under his breath in very colorful language, “Since you got here earlier why don’t you fill me in then Lee?”

“Okay potty mouth, anyways two D.B’s man and woman, a Mr. Kim Hyunsik and Jane Doe. Called in by one of the janitors at around 2:36am in the storage room. The coroner is already there, only people who touched the bodies were the paramedics and police officers who responded,” he grabbed the yellow tape and made his way under it all while trying to avoid the media snapping and shooting everything.

The man turned to him while snapping on the white latex gloves prior to entering the actual building,“You know you can call me Donghyuck right? It’s almost been two agonizing years with you, _Huang_.” He added his surname at the end just for some bluntness and just to provoke the older. 

Renjun ignored him and followed the officer who led the two near the back of the casino with all the flashing lights and cheap, cheery sound effects and past the full liquor bar. “I swear every night there’s something happening at a casino that’s not very pleasant,” another coworker with a clipboard tagged along, and this time someone he didn’t have issues with.

“Well Jaehyun, think of a casino as a frat house on steroids and a lot richer,” Donghyuck pushed aside the ribbon string make-shift “door”, bowing to the officer who showed them the way before entering. 

“Hey guys!” Another man crouching down in between both bodies greeted the trio. Renjun was not expecting blood to be splattered _everywhere_ even for a call like this. It was all over the boxes, floor and even made it to the back wall. 

“Crime of passion?” He suggested as a possibility immediately snapping photos of the two bodies on the ground after putting on the disposable gloves, keyword: possibility. Since no theory was ever correct until proven so.

Donghyuck put down his kit on the floor, getting to eye-level with the coroner, inquiring a few questions while Jaehyun took notes of the scene. 

“From what I can see, blunt force trauma to your guy, contusions on the neck suggests strangulation and...same with Jane Doe, but she has stab wounds, multiple lacerations across her torso. Liver temperatures are 97.3℉, so T.O.D is around two hours,” the man informed, “bodies will be moved out shortly, so document all you want.”

Renjun nodded, aiming for a closer look for details and evidence that might help, “Four marks on the right side while one on the left on the neck, we’re looking for a right-handed person.” 

Donghyuck let out a not so content snort, busy swabbing the blood on the walls and taking notes about the scene verbally. “Well Huang, that narrows it down to what, 95 percent of the population?” 

He turned to dig a burning hole at the back of Donghyuck’s head, glaring at him for a quick second before resuming the processing of the scene. The coroner left, probably to go get the body bags for transportation leaving the three guys in the room. 

Renjun really wanted to cuss Donghyuck out with his whole chest and maybe sucker punch him for extra flavor, but being that he had to remain professional in a work environment he couldn’t exactly do that. He spaced out for a moment, reviewing what he wrote down on a sticky note at his desk. Things like: buy milk, ask/beg supervisor Kim for a day off, get a refill prescription for Valium, and get a coffee. 

“I know y’all hate each other but you wouldn’t prefer someone from the day shift over each other right?” Jaehyun chuckled, noticing that Renjun was glaring at the other man for the longest time. 

Donghyuck turned to look at the eldest, rolling his eyes jokingly, “I’d prefer anybody on the day shift, as long as it’s not Jisung, he talks a bit too much for my liking.” Renjun scoffed, opening his mouth about to throw in a sharp remark but immediately shut up once their supervisor walked in the room. 

“I talked to the janitor and employees, all say they haven’t seen anything so someone has to be lying,” Supervisor Kim looked around the room and grimaced before motioning to Jaehyun for him to come along, probably to further question guests near the storage room at the casino.

A few minutes after swabbing everything he could and bagging anything like a fiber or something that might have a connection to the crime scene. Two coroners returned to the scene, putting a sheet over the bodies and lifting them onto stretchers before loading them out.

After that it was dead silent until, Donghyuck bumped his head against a storage rack with a _clang_ while crawling on the floor in search of a murder weapon in case it was tossed. 

He immediately retracted back, hissing in pain momentarily, rubbing his palm on the spot where it collided before returning his search, but to no avail. “Ow, that hurts like a stubbed toe.”

“Hey, check this out,” Renjun noticed a translucent item crammed in between the second tier of one of the storage racks and a small plastic bin as “books”. The other man walked over to where it was wedged, raising an eyebrow once he identified it.

“A condom? Why in the world would you look forward to sex in a _storage room_?” Donghyuck pulled out a plastic bag just fit for evidence, “I’ll send it over to DNA. Maybe we can get a match to either our victim or our perpetrator assuming the person is a he.”

Renjun snorted, equally weirded out as well, “Some people have certain fantasies, apparently either the killer is a necrophiliac or Mr. Hyunsik here likes screwing in odd places. And no, I did not use ‘Mr. Kim’ because that would be awkward since that is also the same name as our supervisor.”

Maybe they did hate each other’s guts and would trip each other in case a zombie apocalypse did happen, but it would be easy to tell that they were lying if both had said the other had a bad sense of humor. 

Renjun moved on to dusting the room for any fingerprints, maybe partials if he remotely got lucky. Not much was available for them except maybe some items that may lead to the killer like cloth fibers. 

“If there’s a condom then there must be more semen around here, but the guy was fully clothed and the woman too. You think someone redressed them?” Donghyuck inquired, taking out his UV black light and glasses. Instinctively, Renjun flicked the lights off and allowed the other to do his work, watching as he ran up and down every single surface. 

The taller turned and grinned, indicating that he found something potentially probative, “So I found a mass grave for someone’s children here.” That comment made Renjun roll his eyes, not at all humored at the word usage he had chosen.

“You go do that and put whatever I found in your car in a separate pile while I’ll go look outside this room, I can’t stand you,” he snatched up his kit, taking it outside where more potential evidence could be found. Even the tiniest hair with the root still attached would be wonderful. 

Someone called his name when he was a few feet out of the said room, so he spun around to the direction of the noise and saw that Detective Suh was heading his way, which sent _uh-oh_ thoughts to his brain. To his defense he was a rather tall man and intimidating looking, and when he was angry it wasn’t very pretty which he referred to the last time he had a case where unfortunately a kid was murdered. 

“Did you need something from me or…?” Renjun asked slowly, tilting his head. 

“No but you might want to check this out real quick,” he suggested leading the way towards one of the back exits made for employees, “uniform found a purse while doing perimeter twice-over.”

His eyes lit up, they had a chance of IDing their Jane Doe and getting viable physical evidence to help further prove to the jury for conviction. 

The two headed for the back and there it was, a pretty pink purse abandoned near the dumpster closest to the exit door. 

Renjun crouched down to sift through it, finding a driver’s license, 50,000 won, a pack of tissues and something which he couldn’t identify. “Looks like our female vic’, her name is Marissa Gaarder from the States,” he announced once he clearly looked at the card, bagging it along with the rest of the contents, though separately, so they could really see if the purse had belonged to her. 

“Johnny?” His head turned around in multiple directions and still no sign of the giant man, his right hand lowered to his holster but didn’t pull out his fire-arm yet. Now he really didn’t need this right now, especially when he was very much sleep deprived and vulnerable like this.

“Renjun over here! I think I might’ve found our ticket to a vehicle,” Johnny peeked around the corner facing the street, so he jogged over there, letting out a heavy sigh of relief.

The first thing he did was snap photos of the tire treads with his camera at different angles before closely observing it.

“Someone _really_ wanted to haul ass out of here, I’m sure Jongdae can find a match within some hour.” He looked out onto the busy street, at least one person would’ve seen a vehicle high tail it out. 

He shined his flashlight in the dark corners of the property, scouring the plot out, while Johnny stayed at least four feet near him at all times, keeping an eye out for anyone lurking.

Renjun’s head tilted in interest, seeing something that was illuminated by his flashlight, a cigarette butt. It was fresh and crushed, most likely by someone's shoe, so he bagged it as well. 

“I would dumpster dive and I just got this shirt two days ago, which looks really nice on me, would you be a gentleman and dig through it? There might be something here that might’ve come from the scene.” He turned to Johnny, giving him a sweet, innocent smile who groaned in protest. 

“Fine but you owe me something from Starbucks,” the older man pulled off his jacket about to take the extra gloves from Renjun, who kindly handed a pair of the same latex gloves over.

A phone suddenly rang, saving Johnny from the dumpster dive, and both parties quickly patted down their pockets reaching for their work phones. “Lee’s calling, he probably found something or just wants to bother me,” Renjun accepted the call either way.

Johnny opened his mouth to ask which Lee he was referring to since their lab had at least five people with surnames as ‘Lee’ but figured it out in the end. 

“Yeah, why? Oh, so it’s like that now. Whatever, I'll meet you back at the lab after I’m done,” Renjun quickly hung it up, putting the phone back where it was originally, shaking his head. 

“So...you still want me to get whatever that is in there?” Johnny coughed to get his attention after a minute of silence and watching him stare at the ground with his hands on his hips. Renjun nodded and helped the man get into the dumpster even though he didn’t really need the extra hand.

A few minutes of tossing around and losing sight of the object was slowly driving Johnny to the brink of insanity until he finally found a bloodied cloth wrapping something, ahah-ing in victory. 

“So what was that all about,” Johnny raised his hands up in defense still standing in the dumpster, “sorry if I’m intruding in your business.”

“It’s just him reminding me I still owe him that expensive coffee machine after I used it as an experiment for one of our cases, you know the one with the lady who got electrocuted, and we ruled it out as the make-shift coffee machine which was the perpetrator?” His eyes rolled, probably so far back he could see the back of his skull. 

The elder’s mouth formed an ‘O’ and nodded, climbing out of the dumpster with the potential murder weapon wrapped in hand. “Female victim was stabbed right?”

“Yeah and apparently her driver’s license said Marissa Gaarder, so I’m guessing they hooked up since I saw a ring on our guy,” he took the package, unwrapping it to reveal an 8” chef’s knife, smirking at the results, “and our killer might be a chef, there’s a restaurant attached to this casino.” 

“It seems like you need help loading the evidence back to your car but it seems like I need to go question the staff working the kitchen, adios,” Johnny waved before speed walking back to the front, leaving Renjun there to work that out himself.

“Yeah, yeah okay fine, if I get jumped I can pin the blame on someone else,” he said with a huff, looking at the two piles of bags he had on the floor in exasperation.

* * *


	2. Ain't that Regular Occasion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! -> TW// Violence/assault, mentions of: blood, mass suicide, drugs <\- !!!
> 
> Sorry if updates are slow, I'll try my hardest to get them out 5-7 days after each is published! POVs are going to alternate between Renjun and Donghyuck every chapter, just a heads up.

* * *

After a few prolonged meticulous hours and conquering traffic, Donghyuck eventually brought everything he could send to DNA and trace for them to give him conclusions. Anything could be a dead end like a maze’s or one step closer to putting whoever this was behind bars. To clear his mind he settled to linger around the break room for some time and refresh himself.

He rested his head against the glass surface of the table in the middle of the room trying to catch some z’s before he went to work even more for the rest of his shift maybe until the hours of the afternoon. That was until someone stomped into the vicinity and turned on the flat screen TV mounted on the wall and the usual dramatized tone of the news journalists played loud and clear. 

Drowsily, Donghyuck’s head spun around to search the room for whoever interrupted his momentary snooze. The chair next to him was plucked out and another coworker took a seat, waving her left hand at him. He hastily put back on his round framed glasses since at this point he couldn’t honestly see shit without them.

“Looks like you’re on the news already, it’s been three hours barely,” she pointed out as the news channel presented several images of the casino he was recently at. Though at least none of the pictures of the actual scene were released to the public just yet.

“They’re like vultures circling I swear, it’s like a competition to them for whoever publishes the first article true or not,” Donghyuck yawned, covering his mouth while teeny tears began to form, “Anyways, Sooyoung you’re considerately looking a lot better than I recall from two months ago.” 

She gave him a lopsided grin,“Well I’m not in a hospital bed while four nurses are struggling to keep me stable am I?” Donghyuck shook his head about to ask her why she was in the room with him in the first place, but she seemed to read his thoughts. 

“We’re ordering to-go for the people who are staying here longer, you want something? Everything is on the undersheriff for making his job of defending the sheriff’s reputation intact easier.” Sooyoung spun her head to the TV which now was broadcasting some sort of scandal before maintaining eye contact with him. 

“Just some sort of salad with a side of hummus plea-” Donghyuck got cut off by someone barging into the room, kicking courtesy out the door.

“I have discovered there's a _hummus side_ in here,” Renjun was standing at the doorway, beaming stupidly and proudly at his pun.

Donghyuck groaned at the horrible joke, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes shut meanwhile Sooyoung gave him an expressionless stare, blinking slowly.

“Oh come on, you love that pun,” he insisted against their visibly disappointed responses. 

“No we don’t, that was an extremely corny one and equally mediocre.” Donghyuck remarked simply while Sooyoung nodded along. 

Renjun rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything after that alternatively, he rummaged through the partially empty mini-fridge they had to find his pre-packed “breakfast”. Nothing too plain or simple, just an average sandwich with leafy greens, swiss cheese, tomatoes and deli meat, and he decided to have a coffee on top of that.

Someone had a container of spaghetti which he knew would get devoured by somebody else but the possessor sooner or later and there was regularly a gallon of milk in case anybody wanted to enjoy some cereal. 

“And here is where I take my leave,” Sooyoung peeked down at her work phone, “I’ll be sure to put in your order.” With that she left but not before giving Donghyuck a sympathetic pat on the back. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at autopsy?” Donghyuck inquired, rotating his chair a few times, it was just something he did unintentionally whenever he was fatigued. That appeared to keep himself from falling asleep so it became a compulsion. 

“Junmyeon’s backed up with that mass suicide so it’s going to be awhile since Joohyun determined it priority,” Renjun grabbed a seat on the opposing end, unwrapping his sandwich to take a giant mouthful out of it.

Donghyuck hummed, resting his head on his hand, contentedly staring at the TV becoming lost in his own thoughts. By now he would be out walking his dog but the job kept him behind schedule, so he would have to bring his dearest Bear into the lab and have somebody dog sit him sooner or later. 

“Hellooo, did you hear what I just said? You there?” A voice snapped him out of it, and he slightly jolted but eased just as quickly as Renjun brought him out of his pondering. 

“Huh? Oh, no I didn’t hear you _Munchkin_ , besides you were probably complaining about your back again,” he said with a note of unmistakable snarkiness in his tone.

Renjun let out a muted growl at the usage of the nickname but didn’t bother to bicker. Reiterating what he had stated before with an annoyed undertone, “I’m clocking out in an hour, I’ll print photos and hang them in one of the layout rooms before I leave.” 

“Well seeing as how both victims were in the casino, I’ll get Tox to do a screening and determine if they were slipped anything that might’ve made the task easier,” Donghyuck sprung from his seat and began to make way for one of the two exits, “but for now I need to check if anybody wants to doggy sit while I’m on shift and I think Xiaojun has something for me.” 

“Wait what? You have a _dog_? It’s probably one of those tiny ass dogs that are a torment to handle and put up with. I mean it’s kinda resembling you if that’s the case,” Renjun retorted in the same snarky intonation, mimicking his use of it beforehand all while still snacking on his sandwich. 

“Well Munchkin, you have six snakes and two creatures sitting in your _shared_ office, you have no room to talk bad about my precious dog,” He spun around giving the older an icy piercing glare along with an offended expression and didn't say anything further. His head slanted downwards to move his glasses downwards the bridge of his nose in an effort to be perceived as classy. 

Donghyuck made a right turn and headed down a hallway directly for the DNA lab where Xiaojun was definitely either working on another case while he waited for him or was fooling around with one of the employees next door over.

His first thought was confirmed when he saw that the older man was already shuffling around the space, moving in between the technology hastily. There were yellowish sticky notes lining one side of the glass wall, giving the room a jumbled yet a somehow uncluttered vibe. 

Donghyuck stood there in silence for a solid minute or two, observing Xiaojun scurry around in hilarity. “Ya! You said you had something for me?” He tapped the man on the shoulder, the aforementioned twirling around and appeared to think for a second before pushing Donghyuck to the stack of papers somewhere on a desk.

“Your results are in that folder, the blood on the knife is undoubtedly your victims however,” Xiaojun paused and the other glanced at him questioningly, “there's also an undetermined origin on the tang, it’s XX but, I processed it through CODIS sadly there was no match.”

"Our male vic' wasn't stabbed as far as we could discern, though I can understand why our unknown's blood would get on the tang, stabbings are generally chaotic so..." Donghyuck was generally pleased with the outcomes though now he would have to look for a female that wasn't even in the system. 

"Well, you haven't been at the autopsy, you never know but what I can tell you is that a partial on the handle which was smudged, so I couldn’t get anything off of it sorry,” Xiaojun quickly apologized even though it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t get probative results off of the blade. 

He looked over the files and grasped them to take along with him, thanking Xiaojun since he was about to take his leave until he was reminded to ask him something in the back of his head. "Oh! Do you by chance want to err...doggy sit for me?"

Xiaojun craned his head around to glance at Donghyuck with an amused stare, "You know having a dog around wouldn't be ideal, correct? I mean there's a butt load of things that can go astray, like it could get electrocuted-" 

"I'm going to interrupt you right there," he raised one of his hands to stop him from speaking further, "you know how you’ve complained that you're barely getting adequate social interaction daily?"

The latter displayed a peculiar gaze that screamed "what-are-you-saying" and slowly nodded, waiting for Donghyuck to proceed with his blabbering. "And they say dogs can heighten someone's mood so...what do you suppose?" 

"Oh would you look at the time! I need to do something for Jongin!" The man chuckled half-heartily as soon as the printer expelled something out of it, sending various papers flying off the platform where more came out of, "Try to convince Jaem', he loves dogs, I recall he's in Ballistics? He's not the sharpest tool in the shed is he?" 

"Yeah I know him, I'll go see him assuming he's not preoccupied with test firing that lot of guns they found during a raid on some grizzled man's humble abode. And no he's definitely more or less brighter than you are," Donghyuck giggled, gesturing his hand to convey the message “bye” before moving on to go find Jaemin which was an inconvenience since the man was halfway across the lab. 

He instantaneously halted in his tracks as he had sensed his phone vibrate in his pockets, his free hand moved to fish it out of his pocket. The heading displayed as "Tall Man", no it wasn't an exactly professional contact name but hey, who was there to advise him? He accepted and firstly stated his surname.

"Hey, one of the employees insists they witnessed something sometime before the killings, you mind heading down here?" Detective Suh's familiar voice answered back though it sounded like strain in his tone.

"I don't mind at all, Xiaojun informed me that we're allegedly searching for a female-"

The aforementioned’s voice resonated back with an undertone of confidence, “So you’re telling me that this employee is a prime suspect who happens to be a chef?” 

“We can’t rule anything out for now, so yes as far as I’m concerned.” Donghyuck was already speed walking towards the exit, his strides getting shorter as his pace picked up. 

“Alright meet you there," the other line beeped, signifying the end of the exchange. 

Soon enough he got into the parking lot, his steps echoing as he trotted towards his work car. He unlocked the car, slammed the car door closed, readjusted his rear view mirror, started his vehicle, swung his right limb around the passenger seat and glanced back, and reversed out of his reserved parking spot. He supposed he'd have to go find somebody to monitor his dog eventually since now he had something to do.

* * *

Donghyuck strolled down the saddening and depressing colored hallways of the station, his kit and file in hand. He planned on swabbing the potential suspect to attempt a match between the contributor of blood on the tang. 

From there he met up with Detective Suh in front of one of the interrogation rooms and from what he could perceive from the window, he saw a middle-aged woman with an anxious demeanor. Johnny gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder and a thumbs-up, “Good luck with her, it was a hassle convincing her to come down here. I’ll be watching, oh and her name is Cha Hwayoung.” 

With no further ado, he swung the door open and moved cautiously towards the table to set down his briefcase. “Hello ma’am, I’m Lee Donghyuck with the crime lab and I’m just here to ask you some questions and collect your DNA,” the introduction was kept brief and dumbed down.

“What?! Why! I did nothing wrong, I came down here voluntarily and now I’m getting treated like a _suspect_!” The woman shouted in an outburst of disbelief and shock which Donghyuck could understand completely. 

“Ms. Cha please calm down, it’s just standard procedure I promise, I’m just going to swab the inside of your cheek,” he replied calmly in an effort to prevent the situation from escalating further, “Okay?”

Ms. Cha scoffed, crossing her arms defensively before reluctantly nodding. Donghyuck flashed her a grin before taking out the elongated Q-tip from his kit, and flicked off its lid. The woman opened her mouth to enable him to swab her right cheek which only took around a few seconds. 

“See, it wasn’t that painful,” he tutted, securing the cap back on the container and leaving it in his kit for safe keeping. That comment caused her eyes to roll, Donghyuck thought the woman might kick his shins in if he sat down, so he remained standing up. 

“So you claim you saw something last night, tell me _exactly_ and specifically,” he planted his palms down on the cool metal surface of the table, maintaining eye contact though you could take it as staring. He gave it an extra thought, if Ms. Cha was a chef, what was she doing in the casino?

"I was merely on my break and I decided to gamble a little, you can't detain me for that now can you?" She glared at him, which Donghyuck decided she was being the stereotypical sassy middle-aged woman at her peak. 

"I suppose not, now would you mind showing me your hands?" He asked politely as he could, expectantly she hesitated and gave him a suspicious glare. 

He sighed, somebody was truly making an effort to make his job a lot more complex than it needed to be, "If you have nothing to hide then just show me your palms unless you do have something to hide" Donghyuck was now going to have to build up the pressure since Ms. Cha wasn't being the most compliant. 

That's when everything became a dizzying spiral of conflict, he felt himself getting shoved and thus hitting his head on the ground, it wasn't too much of a struggle to do so since he was a lighter weight. His vision became a blur as quickly as he sensed a hand grasp around his throat, squeezing to all hell and nails dug into the skin but not strong enough to break it. 

Time seemed to slow down for Donghyuck as he seized the woman's arm, trying to pry her off of himself though hindered by the throbbing pains coursing through the back of his skull. All he heard was shrieking and shouting, the rest was background noise. Finally, what seemed like an eternity but was hardly under 45 seconds, all the pressure on his neck was yanked off allowing him to take shaky deep breaths. 

He backed away up against the wall and sat there letting out low groans of agony, waiting for his vision to clear while his attacker was wrestled down and handcuffed. Johnny rushed to his aid after he and another officer secured Ms. Cha, Donghyuck was nearly coughing his lungs out, an effect caused by the choking.

"He's faking it! He's a liar, it's all an act!" She screamed as the officer dragged her out of the room to prevent anything further and per Johnny's request. If she was doing it for attention, she succeeded since bypassers stared at her as if she was psycho.

Johnny tipped his head forward, checking for any bleeding which was something bound to happen with the rate he was pummeled to the ground at. Miraculously it didn't, which gave him a huge relief. "You don't need a medic right?" He wanted to certain though he was going to pester Donghyuck to get it checked out some time soon. 

Though it was very clear that his mind screamed at him that yes, he did need someone to verify that he didn't have anything turning his brain to mush or internal bleeding. He rasped out, blatantly ignoring the thoughts telling him of the risks, "No, no it'll be fine I'll walk it off." Johnny gave him a concerned, unsure glance but helped him up and guided him towards the nearest bench anyways. 

"Just sit tight and I'll get you water and inform Doyoung that you're off, you're going to have splitting headaches later so don't you dare get up and go do something. I'll personally drive you home, it's not safe driving around in a daze like that," and there it was, Johnny's time to shine acting like his mother whenever he got a minor scrape when he was just a small child. 

He wanted to protest against it but realized soon that it wasn't an argument that he was going to be triumphant. "Okay fine, what about all the stuff I had sitting in there? _Fuck_ , ow..." Donghyuck whipped his head around to gawk at the said room too quickly and that sent sparks of pain that were dizzying. 

"I'll get someone to deliver it to the lab so give me a minute and don't move away," Johnny gave him a stern response and a frightening glance which definitely made him want to stay put. 

Great, just what he wanted, a situation where he sooner or later was going to have to down his painkillers and Ms. Cha was most certainly going to lawyer up. His day was absolutely going to straight shit and it wasn't on the agenda of events he wanted to happen, especially not assault. His hands moved to cover his face and they slowly dragged down in frustration, multiple noises of discomfort escaped even though Donghyuck tried to supress them.

Donghyuck couldn't get pity points on a job like this, so he knew he had to brush it off like it didn't happen and move on. Then it occurred to him that due to his petty situation, bruises were going to form which would be a further humiliation and his coworkers would nonstop tease him for it and pull off sick sexual jokes. He came to the conclusion that it was going to be a torturous lengthy week while waiting for Johnny to come back.

* * *


End file.
